Armenian and Azerbaijani forces shelled each other’s positions in a volatile border area early on Thursday, with both sides reporting injuries among their troops.
Armenia claimed that the Azerbaijani military launched an artillery and mortar attack on its servicemen near the village of Sotk around 6:00am local time (2:00am GMT).
The shelling continued for several hours and wounded at least three Armenian troops, the country’s Defense Ministry said. It also accused Azerbaijan of targeting an ambulance as it was evacuating one of the injured soldiers.
“The units of the Armenian Armed Forces are taking appropriate preventive and defense measures” in response to the actions by the neighboring country, the ministry said. The situation in other areas along the border between the two former Soviet republics remains “stable,” it added.
Meanwhile, Baku insisted it was responding to an attack by Armenian forces late on Wednesday, in which an Azerbaijani soldier sustained a serious head injury as a result of “intense shelling.” Yerevan has rejected this claim.
Mortar and artillery fire continued from the other side of the border on Thursday morning, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said, adding that it was performing “the necessary countermeasures.”
Armenia has carried out “a deliberate provocation” and has “once again violated the ceasefire,” the ministry insisted.
Despite the flareup, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he still intends to travel to Brussels on Sunday for talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. However, he made it clear that the possibility of a peace deal being signed during the meeting was “very low” as the draft treaty still needs work.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are engaged in a decades-old dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a part of Azerbaijan with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population, which declared independence from Baku in the early 1990s. In 2020, the two neighbors fought a 44-day war for control of the area, which concluded in a truce brokered and monitored by Russia.
However, tensions have still remained high between Yerevan and Baku, resulting in sporadic border incidents. The most intense flareup occurred last September, when clashes led to dozens of casualties on both sides.